This story does not have a happy ending

Category: Essays

There are a lot of words you could use to describe Arizona State University. “A public university in Arizona” if you’re Wikipedia. “Innovative” if you’re a member of the marketing staff. “Unconstitutionally expensive” if you’re Arizona’s Attorney-General.

However, by far the best word to describe ASU is large. ASU is massive. Gargantuan. Colossal. The Tempe campus alone is larger than at least two internationally recognized independent states, outsizing Monaco and Vatican City at 662 acres (2.67 km²). And that’s just the main campus — there are four other campuses throughout the Phoenix metro area, which each add 575 acres (Polytechnic), 278 acres (West), 160 acres (Thunderbird), and 18 acres (Downtown Phoenix) to the total size. And that doesn’t even begin to cover all the various other buildings and properties owned or leased by the university throughout the city, but you probably get the point by now. ASU is big.